Bump starting a 1200GS

[strudelpoodle]

This might sound silly but the battery on my GS appears to have discharged itself (in less than 7 days!)....can anyonee tell me if there's any reason why I shouldn't bump start the bike (I've got a small downhill section of road outside my house)?

 

[Pukmeister]

I hope the battery has enough juice left in it to activate the computer which controls the engine and immobiliser functions. Also it is possible that any voltage surge may harm the bikes electronics though I imagine BWM have engineered it to be a little more robust than that.

If I were you, I would go out and buy an Optimate or similar immediately and connect it to the battery, if it has only recently discharged it should fully recover it within a few hours before any plate sulphation takes place and kills it permanently. Once recovered, you can start the bike again safely without any voltage spikes frying anything then keep it optimated when not riding to maintain the battery. They are about £35 and worth every penny ( a new battery is twice that amount). The heated grip controller on my Yamaha shorted and flattened the battery, but my optimate recovered the battery once I disconnected the grips and it still performs fine now. A full charge/discharge/charge cycle is beneficial for battery health but leaving one fully discharged for any length of time does serious harm to the battery.

My R1200GS does not discharge the battery when left standing, so I guess long-term you need a dealer to look at the bike and find out why, then fix it under warranty.

 

[DodgyGeeSer]

Does your bike have ABS brakes? How steep is that hill?
Remember you'll only have residual braking if you have no power...

 

[Gipsy]

I guessing the bike is till under warranty so why not ring recovery and get it to the dealer. They can sort it and not invalidate the warranty. Funnily enough mine did this 4/52 after buying it. Fortunately I had an optimate and it was sorted in a few hours, and no problems since.

 

[Tim Cullis]

any reason why I shouldn't bump start the bike

Of course not. I would use third gear--the lower ones tend to just lock the rear tyre. Use your body weight to bounce down on the bike as you drop the clutch to minimisel ocking.

Tim

 

[Mouse]

Bump starting allegedly damages the catalytic converter. But I suspect no one cares

 

[steve16]

Try,,,,

the battery connections,I had a similar problem and it appears the engineer failed to tighten the negitive connection.....donut !

Steve

 

[Abelrider]

Ive tried bump starting in the first four gears (in the intrest of science) and I can report that it locks up immediately in all four gears despite 15 stone bumping down on it.

I gave up then.

 

[drdata]

Ive tried bump starting in the first four gears (in the intrest of science) and I can report that it locks up immediately in all four gears despite 15 stone bumping down on it.

I gave up then.

My dealer told me it was absolutley impossible to bump start the r12, especially with no, or a dead battery. This was because the wheel rotation will not generate enough juice for the motronic/injectors. That said, I have a hard time bumping the xl 600 due to wheel skid, and I am 230 lbs (not sure how many stiones that is).

Cheers

 

[Arthurwg]

I found it very easy to bump-start my R1100S, for some reason. But the battery was not completely dead, and the bike had previously been running. I believe I used 2nd gear.

 

[Abelrider]

My dealer told me it was absolutley impossible to bump start the r12, especially with no, or a dead battery.

Yeah I tried it with a good battery. I was just intrested to see how easy it was/wasnt in case it came to needing to do it for real.
I guess BMW assistance are worth the money.

 

[TheJoker]

Jumper cables - read all about it in the manual. Including how to leave the donor vehicle running.

Did you perchance happen to flick the ignition key when you put her away - just on for a brief moment, to realise that you shouldn't have had the ignition on,... and then you turned it off before the self diagnostics had time to finish..? If you did that, you've confused the compoopers on the bike and they're running around like lunatics hence draining the battery... Has happened to me twice; Parked the bike up outside, put steering lock on, came to push the bike into the garage, flicked the ignition on by mistake, quickly switched it off. Happened to leave the bike in the garage for about a week - dead battery. Cured by jump starting of my girlfriends car... easy peasy.

 

[strudelpoodle]

Thanks for all the advice. I've decided that discretion is the better part of valour and have gone the Optimate (well Acumen Smart Charger) route. The bike's been on charge since last night so I'm hoping that when I try to start her up this morning all will be well.

I asked my local BMW dealer about this problem yesterday and they reckon I accidentally switched the parking lights (-I'm adamant I didn't). If this happens again then it's back to the dealer for a check-up. I presume the simplest answer is a defective battery?